It’s a Funny Thing…

It is 2007 and I’m laying in a hospital bed and know the score: 80 percent of people with Esophageal Cancer are don’t make it to three years, and few make it to five years.

God speaks two things right into my heart: first, if I’m going to make it, it will only be if people pray for me and second, I have to be willing to take all the worse cancer treatments.

 

Now, not only did I make it to five years, but I made it to ten and then to eleven. And this is only because of you and your prayers. I am forever grateful. You have no idea!!!

Prayer, though, is a funny thing. Take my condition now. It’s pretty straight-forward: you can pray that I am completely healed of these tumors and that the bad symptoms that have left me a semi-invalid go away. That’s easy.

I did have a life before Cancer!  This is me in 2006 at Boldt Castle!

Or is it? The question is: what is the best thing for me? Let’s take my semi-invalid state: I can’t get out of bed by myself. I would give my last nickel at this point if I could just get up and go to the bathroom by myself; just to go outside and get the mail – how much is that worth? The world.

So, it’s obvious that we can pray that these symptoms go away, and soon. But then again, we can turn the entire question on its head: what if sitting in this bed and having others do everything for me is actually the best thing for me? What if it gives me time to think about my life and about God, softens me and transforms me? What if it helps me to get something rare in this world and like gold: patience. Isn’t that good?

That is why prayer is a funny thing. We really don’t know what to pray for. Looking back on my life, some things that I thought were the best for me turned out to be the worst and the worst things turned out to be the best. We really don’t know what is best for us. And Per Romans 8, we really don’t know what to pray for.

But still, pray that I can be healed, the symptoms go away and that everything I go through transforms me for Eternity. Then it’s all worth it!